Softhearted
by LenaxROCK
Summary: Amis fic: Jean Prouvaire is his melancholy, poetic self, and Feuilly vents from some bottled up anger. [slash only if you'd like.]


**Author's Note:** I hope you all will like this. It's just a short fic I wrote to practice writing the Amis. It may or may not be a slash fic because I know a lot of you like slash and a lot of you don't, so I arranged it so that you could choose. Hope you like it, and leave a review if you do!

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He hasn't been to the Musain in over two weeks, and I'm growing concerned about him. He's a friend of mine, as are all of these fine men, but he's one to especially be on my mind, considering he leads such an impoverished and sickly lifestyle. In addition, he's an orphan, and his only other relatives don't live here, meaning that the only ones in his life who are able to take care of him are we, the Friends of the ABC. And so who knows where's he been all this time and why, and if he is alright?

When he returns, and this excludes the dreadful possibility, "if he returns," I certainly will keep in better contact with him. I've come to realize how disgraceful it's been to not know his address so that perhaps I could check on him afer such a long abscence, but I'm going to soon remedy that shame, and so I hope whistfully that he returns today, or at least very, very soon.

----

Ah, what a happy day! I was just writing out the first word of a new poem, and I turned to see, just in time, his entrance. So he is alright after all!

It is just he and I in the back room of the Musain at the moment. I smile at him as he takes a seat at the table and smiles back. I hurriedly finish the line I was writing and look back up at him.

"Feuilly! It is pleasant to see you back at the café," I say. "If you don't mind my asking, why such a long abscence? I hope you've been in good health."

Feuilly fidgets with the fan he brought with him and says, not tersely and not cheerfully, but in a peculiarly indifferent way, "It was nothing." He does not look away from the table beneath his gaze.

I persist in hopes of starting a conversation. "That's a lovely decorated fan you have there, Monsieur Fueilly. The ridges are just neatly so and the pattern is wonderfully colorful. How is your fan-making work, by the way?"

The light-orange-haired young man beside me at last takes his glance away from underneath him to across the table. He replies, a bit apathetically, "My fans, they aren't selling as well as I'd like, as much as they should. 'S why I was gone for a while, a bit of a financial trouble."

There are several moments of silence. Obviously, he is only trying to shrug off the matter, and I begin to contemplate.

This man, he has had such a trouble out of life. He was raised without real parents, has lived a severely poor life until, after struggling to teach himself to read and write, he finally got an income making fans, and even if it seems to pay well, it won't bring him out of a low financial depth. And now the fans won't make any money at all, or at least much, much less than it did even before.

I gather every last franc I have with me and clutch the money tightly in my hand.

"Monsieur," I say breaking the silence, but almost a little too loudly, "I believe this may aid you a bit in your financial difficulty. Please take this gift, and if the need ever again rises, there is to be no apprehension in seeking more. Here, please have it."

I reach out my hand to his and empty all the money into his palm. For a moment there is no motion and no speaking; there isn't any sign of emotion on his face for a long time. Despite Feuilly's lack of response, I feel cheerful like one does after doing the right thing. I assume he isn't going to respond, so I begin packing away my writings and ink bottle, preparing to leave. Suddenly, as I happen to get a glance of his face, he frowns.

"Jehan," he says, almost angrily, in a much stronger tone than before, "do you and Courfeyrac and Enjolras and everyone else just enjoy pitying me? I'd like to know if you always have routine plans of singling my poverty out to everybody. I do not need your money when I can make my own well enough, do you understand, Jehan? My only quality is not penury, you know! Here, take this ridiculous sum and get it away from my sight! I don't need your help, Monsieur Prouvaire, thank you very much."

With that, Feuilly, upset and exasperated, propels the money onto the table top, takes his fan, scowls at me, and walks away and out of the café.

I've never been one to hold back crying when it's necessary or expected of me. I let the tears fall -- I am an emotional person, a poet, I am -- and open up my writing tools once again.


End file.
